


synonyms include mediocre

by daisysusan



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2012-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 00:12:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisysusan/pseuds/daisysusan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Average: the result obtained by adding several quantities together and then dividing this total by the number of quantities; or: Nick can't stop laughing that Harry has an average face and Harry is (trying to be) unamused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	synonyms include mediocre

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ifonlyella](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ifonlyella).



> Happy (slightly late) birthday, Isi! 
> 
> Thanks to crucios for taking a quick look over this. For the DW cottoncandy_bingo prompt _apology/forgiveness_.

If it weren’t for the face Harry made every time, Nick probably could have stopped after the third or fourth—okay, seventh or eighth—fit of laughing, but as it is, he can’t even think about the extraordinary pout Harry put on without having yet another bout of giggling. And then, of course, Harry goes all grumpy and pouty again, and Nick can’t stop laughing at all. 

So really, it’s a vicious circle. 

He keeps it together during the quick rehearsal for the Teen Awards, and by the time he’s sinking into his sofa with Harry next to him, he thinks he’s maybe got to a point where just thinking about it won’t make him start laughing again. 

He’s wrong—as soon as he turns to face Harry, he has to press his hand to his mouth to stifle the laughter. 

“Will you cut it out?” Harry says, frowning and looking like he might actually start rolling his eyes. “It wasn’t _that_ ” funny.”

“It really was, though,” Nick says, poking at Harry’s dimple. “Average face. I should change you to that in my mobile.”

Harry just looks resigned. “It was funny the first thirty or forty times, now it’s just got old.”

Taking a steadying breath, and trying to meet Harry’s eyes without analyzing how symmetrical his face is—it’s remarkably so, except for his left dimple being so much more prominent than his right—Nick forces himself to speak without laughing. “It’s not the face thing that’s funny, it’s your face—”

“Oi, you think my face is funny?” Harry says. Nick can’t quite gauge whether he’s actually offended this time or not. The scowl is funny regardless. 

“No,” he manages to choke out. 

Harry raises his eyebrows. “Convincing argument, that one.”

Nick gives up, pressing his face into Harry’s shoulder until his stomach hurts from laughing for too long. 

“Are you quite finished?” Harry says, exasperated. Well, exasperated but fond, Nick can hear it in the timbre of his voice and feel it in the way his hand is moving slowly up and down Nick’s arm. 

“I might be,” Nick says, swallowing hard and forcing himself to steady his breath. “If you can stop pouting.”

“I don’t know, Grimmy, I think I’ve earned a bit of pouting.” Harry is considering but also worryingly mischievous. “You have been laughing at my face all afternoon, it’s not exactly flattering.”

Nick shrugs. “You want your ego stroked, talk to Sugarscape.”

“They’re no good for a snog.”

“Clearly, you’ve never asked. They’d snog you in a heartbeat. Probably drop trou as well, if you flashed a bit of dimple.”

Harry’s face twists in a really interesting way Nick’s never seen it do before. “They’d probably post a review of it online, too,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

“That’s a lot of performance anxiety,” Nick says. Because he’s enough of an arse to sometimes find Harry’s stage fright funny, apparently. 

“I think I’ll stick to dropping trou for you,” Harry says, and Nick’s urge to point out that he’ll take his trousers off at the slightest provocation is cut off when Harry kisses him. 

He’s still not quite processed that it’s happened at all when Harry pulls back, whispering “I’ll get you back, Grimshaw, you need to watch your back” before he saunters off toward the kitchen, probably going to cook something more impressive (and edible) than Nick’s ever made in his life. 

 

 

Harry’s revenge, it turns out, comes at half seven on a Tuesday morning. Tuesdays are always the hardest day of the week, without the relaxation of the previous weekend to coast through on and still too far from the next weekend to claw through by focusing on the light at the end of the tunnel.

(Nick’s not entirely sure that thought made sense, but it’s half seven on a Tuesday morning. He can’t possibly be blamed for it.)

Apparently Harry has the day off and hadn’t bothered to mention it, because he’s just slipped into the room, padding softly over to Nick’s chair and kissing him quickly just before the song ends. Blinking rapidly in an effort to check he’s not fallen asleep and isn’t dreaming Harry Styles has come to visit him at work, Nick fumbles his way through a link. It’s terrible, but Tuesdays are always terrible, so he can’t really say he gives two fucks.

When he turns around to greet Harry properly—well, as properly as he can with other people around—Harry’s settled himself in the corner just like he did nearly every night before Nick started on Breakfast. His heart twists with something he’s not got the time or inclination to identify, but if he had to take a stab in the dark it would probably be longing. Because he is apparently now the type of person who wishes his—they’ve never talked about his, no more than they talk about anything else, but there’s kissing and there’s sex and it all happens pretty frequently—his _Harry_ could sit silently in the corner listening to him do the radio every day. 

Because being in the same room as him makes Nick happy, apparently. 

He’s slightly disgusted with himself. 

And then he takes a proper look at Harry, whose lips are shiny like he’s just licked them. His hair’s all tousled—he’s probably just got out of bed—and he’s watching Nick through heavy lidded eyes. 

“Didn’t expect to see you here, love,” Nick says, trying desperately to ignore that Harry looks like sex. 

“Nothing to do today, thought I’d come keep you company for a couple hours. I’ve missed Finchy, you know how it is.”

Finchy’s not the one Harry spends the next few links staring at while licking his fingers. Okay, he’s licking jam from the toast someone brought him off his fingers—and it’s really not right how everyone here dotes on Harry, just because he’s charming or a popstar or something ridiculous—but it still involves Harry licking his fingers and Nick’s only human, it gets him a bit flustered. 

It’s not until Harry’s just sitting there, rubbing his thumb absently across his lower lip, that Nick realizes this is probably the revenge he’d promised. 

“Will you cut that out?” Nick hisses over the impossibly catchy strains of We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together. 

“What?” Harry asks, looking impossibly innocent. Nick’s seem him put that look on more times than he can count, and he’s seen it work on everyone from Aimee (whom he expected to have more resistance) to baristas to people who really ought to know better (like Nick himself). 

“That face won’t work on me,” Nick says. “It’s entirely too average.” It’s already working, of course, and Harry probably knows it because he’s had the damn thing his whole life and has been abusing it nearly as long. His fingers are dangerously close to being inside his mouth and Nick is at his fucking _job_ , okay? He’s at work and Finchy is probably watching because he’s an arsehole and god, there’s no way this track isn’t ending soon. 

Nick tears his eyes away from Harry’s fingers, because Harry is also an arsehole, albeit a much prettier one than Fincham, and fumbles through yet another link. 

Harry’s not said anything about Nick’s “average face” comment, but he’s actually sucking on one of his fingers when Nick finally turns back around, and he thinks he’s probably worked out the formula. Nick makes a dig at Harry’s face, Harry does something to remind him exactly how not-average it is. Like he doesn’t have hordes of screaming fans who tell him how fit he is every day. Teenage girls wear his face on their t-shirts and plaster it to their bedroom walls, but evidently Harry’s just going to be petulant—and obnoxiously sexy—until Nick gives it up. 

“If I tell you you’re well fit, will you take your fingers out of your mouth?” he hisses, praying to any deity that might have any sympathy for him that Finchy’s not listening. 

Harry tilts his head consideringly and hums. 

Oh god, what if he wants an _on-air apology_ , that would be horrifying and Nick would do it. That’s the most horrifying bit, the idea that he might actually apologise for mocking someone just because Harry sucked on his fingers and looked at him with big innocent eyes. And because it’s Harry, but that’s a whole slew of other problems Nick absolutely cannot be dealing with while he’s on air. 

Pulling his fingers out of his mouth, Harry says, “You have to promise to be nice to me.” Nick nods; he can manage to be nice to Harry. When Harry’s around, anyway. It’s hard enough being mean to his face. “On air,” Harry continues, and Nick’s getting warier now. “For two weeks.”

Cruel, cruel boy. But better than a live apology. 

“And you can’t say anything rude about me and just say you’re talking about a friend, either.”

Nick really, honestly doesn’t remember why he likes Harry at all. 

“Deal,” he says. It’s not like he’s got a choice, if Harry doesn’t let up he’s going to be completely unfit for work the rest of the morning and no one will ever let him live it down. 

Harry smiles like the cat who got the cream and pushes up to kiss the corner of Nick’s mouth quickly. “I suppose you could tell me how fit I am later.”

“We already got a psychologist to do that,” Nick says before he can stop himself. Harry gives him a look that Nick’s sure he didn’t know how to do a year ago—maybe he got Louis to give him lessons, the bastard would definitely teach Harry how to sass people. “She was dead wrong, though, your face isn’t average at all.”

Harry’s smirk goes even wider, which is kind of nauseating because it’s a pointed reminder of two things: one, Nick’s boyfriend is a complete arsehole, and two, he’s gone enough to find it endearing. 

“Yours isn’t either,” Harry says, giving Nick another quick kiss. “Now go do your job, I have an image and can’t be dating a disgraced former Breakfast Show host.”

“You totally would, though,” Nick says, smirking back, and Harry’s response is so quick and so sincere it makes his stomach turn over.

“Of course.” Harry pauses for a moment. “Well, not if we’re talking about Moyles. Not that he’s disgraced or anything. But I wouldn’t snog him for a million quid.”

“You already have a million quid, you twat. Hush now.”

Harry does, thankfully. 

 

 

(The two weeks are miserably difficult, and Nick knows everyone in the studio is hanging onto his every word, trying to catch even the faintest tinge of mockery when he talks about Harry—Henry and Gells tried to convince him to mention the punishment on air but he’d managed to talk his way out of that one. Still, even Tina smirks at him when she comes downstairs to practice communicating via telegraph or whatever it is she does when there’s a guest in she wants to spy on.

At least Harry rewards him with a lovely dinner and a _spectacular_ blowjob when he succeeds.

Nick might accidentally mock a bit extra during his next show, but that's for him to enjoy and Harry to never hear about because he was off doing other radio shows all morning.)


End file.
